The Celestial Seas / T.A. Chan / Book Review
THE CELESTIAL SEAS
Ishara Ming shouldn't be alive, and yet here she is. She's the sole survivor of the Essex, a spacefaring whaler that was destroyed by a legend. Nobody else believes in the Ballena, the great white whale of the stars, one of the last rogue Mech-Operated Bio-Integrated Spacecrafts in space. But she saw it with her own eyes, right before it claimed the lives of her twenty-three crewmates aboard the Essex.
Now Ishara runs her own whaler crew, but hers isn't the sleek operation of the Essex that raised her. Nobody of that caliber is willing to sell themselves into her wild-goose-chase service. But the crew she has is as top-tier as they come among the outcasts of the stars, at least at her price point. They make a steady profit... most of the time.
But when Augustus, a ship mech with a shady past, joins her crew, things start to change. The memories of her life before the destruction of the Essex that Ishara thought were erased for good start coming back in violent flashes. And Augustus getting violent episodes of his own, intimately connected with the way he claims he can track the Ballena. With her crew more than a little skeptical about the newcomer and not quite sure they can trust their captain's judgement, revolt seems on the horizon... but so is the legendary Ballena.
Now Ishara runs her own whaler crew, but hers isn't the sleek operation of the Essex that raised her. Nobody of that caliber is willing to sell themselves into her wild-goose-chase service. But the crew she has is as top-tier as they come among the outcasts of the stars, at least at her price point. They make a steady profit... most of the time.
But when Augustus, a ship mech with a shady past, joins her crew, things start to change. The memories of her life before the destruction of the Essex that Ishara thought were erased for good start coming back in violent flashes. And Augustus getting violent episodes of his own, intimately connected with the way he claims he can track the Ballena. With her crew more than a little skeptical about the newcomer and not quite sure they can trust their captain's judgement, revolt seems on the horizon... but so is the legendary Ballena.
THOUGHTS
This book is more interesting in concept than in execution. Every bit of the worldbuilding here is on point, but the characters are terribly lacking. And I do think this book takes the worst parts of Herman Melville's Moby Dick and leaves them less-than-transformed. Which is a shame. There's a lot of fun to be had in a retelling like this, and there was so much potential in the world T.A. Chan produces. But I think it was too big of a task and too hard of a source to really land in the way it should have.
This book is more interesting in concept than in execution. Every bit of the worldbuilding here is on point, but the characters are terribly lacking. And I do think this book takes the worst parts of Herman Melville's Moby Dick and leaves them less-than-transformed. Which is a shame. There's a lot of fun to be had in a retelling like this, and there was so much potential in the world T.A. Chan produces. But I think it was too big of a task and too hard of a source to really land in the way it should have.
PROS
| Space Whales | I really liked this universe where the vast emptiness of the stars is teeming with (somewhat artificial) life. These whales are part ship, part biological entity (though not one that comes with any real consciousness). After going rogue and being abandoned by their human creators, they've adapted to the harsh atmosphere of life in the stars, and they're prepared, per biological impulse, to defend their half-tech lives at all costs. It's a strange concept, and I like it. And I like that the human populations have found them such an incredible nuisance (and valuable commodity) that an entire industry has arisen in hunting them down and scrapping them for parts (if, you know, the crew survives). |
| Space Eco-System | The strange economy that has arisen around these space whales is interesting, too. It's an industry that depends on these partially biological tech entities, which are hard to track and harder to hunt (but well worth it if you can drag the parts to the nearest space station to sell off). But they're also going extinct, by design, so it is both a lucrative industry and, at this point in the book, an actively dying one. I liked the note of desperation that adds to the whole economy around this space ecosystem, and I liked the way this plays into the ramshackle and somewhat shady locations our whaling crew ends up to sell the parts they've gathered. Everyone's scraping out a living, our particular crew especially, and the dingy atmosphere this adds to the book is really great. |
| Diverse Star Systems | It's always nice to find a book that acknowledges human diversity, and it is especially nice to see all the facets of humanity spread out across the stars in this whaling tale. It's not just one mono-culture that has taken to the heavens. There are star systems colonized by all kinds of people, from cultures and linguistic backgrounds that are as unique and diverse as our current populations across the planet earth. Ishara comes from one star system with its rituals and cultural inheritance, and she's living now in a new system, different right down to the slang they speak. And it's nice to see how new cultures evolve in space while also retaining the echoes of where they come from, the heritage they've brought with them into this new life among the stars. It makes this universe feel so rich and compelling. It is nice to see all kinds of cultures branching out into the stars. |
CONS
| You know what gave me major ick in this book? The fact that we're hunting biological specimen to extinction. And sure, they're not natural. Sure, they're not conscious, at least in the way we currently conceive consciousness. But evidence points to emerging consciousnesses in this book. And you know what? Hunting a species to extinction, even if that species is harmful to human populations, has proven to be a bad thing throughout natural history. We double down on this goal of total extinction. Ishara holds her ground. She says it is necessary. She says humanity could never learn to coexist with these space whales and they therefore must be eliminated. And I don't know. I just think we maybe should take a lesson or two from history before spreading this kind of message. It wasn't handled well. I didn't like it. It felt very gross to me. Self-defense is one thing, but complete population annihilation is maybe not where we should be, as a species. | Extinctionist |
| You know what else gave me the ick? The weird love triangle that emerges in this book. Ishara's got two intimate entanglements in this book, and the tension that this triangle creates just didn't work for me. Her first mate, Quinn, has stood by her side for years, and we're kind of supposed to assume they're very close before the book begins (like, they know they both have feelings for each other, but for some reason haven't quite spoken it out loud?). And the new crew member she brings aboard has intense and immediate chemistry with this whaling captain as well. But I didn't really buy into the relationship with Quinn, and the relationship with Augustus felt like it was constantly crossing boundaries and existing in a murky place that felt rather uncomfortable, as a reader. And ultimately, I just wasn't invested in either of these relationships. So it was... disappointing. | Love Triangle |
| If the main triangle didn't work for me, was the world at least populated by an interesting cast of secondary and tertiary characters? Alas, no. The only real characters who got fleshed out (and that's somewhat debatable) are this main trio. The rest of the characters are so incredibly flat they're hardly more than names. Did I know anything about the rest of the crew? Sure. Two of them are twins. One of the twins is very particular. The other crew member, not one of the twins, is part of an anti-whale religion. And... that's it. That's all I got, through the whole book. They do nothing. They leave no impression. Nothing at all. Every character outside of this crew is just there to cause plot drama, even when it doesn't make sense or have the type of payoff to be worth it. So really, if you're looking for good characters, don't expect to get that here. You won't. | Blank Space |
Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5/10
Fans of Nicky Drayden's Escaping Exodus will love this new take on space whales and adaptation in the far reaches of the universe. Those who loved Cecil Castelluci's Tin Star will like this harsh outer space economy.
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Details
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Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own. |
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